Young Citizens League

Miss Anna S. Williams, a Minnesota teacher, created the Young Citizens League.  In 1910, M.M. Guhin, superintendent of Brown County, South Dakota, established the League in Brown County.  E. C. Giffen, a Brown County teacher, help spread the organization statewide.  The purpose of the organization, as stated in The Young Citizens League pamphlet by M.M Guhin, was to develop character and citizenship and to promote a sense of service and individual responsibility, essential in a self-governing nation.  Each chapter was organized in any grade room or school.  The League promoted democratic principles and provided children with opportunity to have self-determination in the organization.

By 1941, YCL had 7,500 chapters in South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Colorado.  The First South Dakota State Convention was held in Pierre on April 25, 1927.  The South Dakota State Steering Committee, in March 1971, decided to discontinue the League as a state organization.  At that time, each school system had the option to continue citizen education, but under its own direction.